The Development

by John Barth

“A merry satire about the smart, moneyed, and demanding retirees living in a gated community . . . Scintillating on the surface and churning with danger below” (Booklist). From a National Book Award–winning author, this is a collection of “nine darkly comic stories set in a gated community on Maryland’s Eastern Shore” (Publishers Weekly).   Something has disturbed the comfortably aging denizens of Heron Bay Estates, a pristine retirement community in Chesapeake Bay. In the dawn of the new millennium—and the evening of their lives—these empty nesters have discovered that their tidy enclave can be surprisingly colorful, shocking, and surreal.   From the high jinks of a toga party to a baffling suicide pact, John Barth, “a comic genius of the highest order,” brings compassion to the lives of his characters with the mordant humor that has earned him a reputation as one of our most original storytellers (The New York Times Book Review).   “Disturbing, but humorous . . . Reading ‘The Development’ is a worthy investment in lofty literary real estate.” —The Seattle Times   “Perhaps the most prodigally gifted comic novelists writing in English today.” —Newsweek   “A low-key, clear-eyed, battered-but-unbowed portrait of the diminishments and minor pleasures of age. Barth’s prose still has its sinew and snap; he examines near-decrepitude with mordant, rueful wit.” —Kirkus Reviews

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction, American, The United States Of America

178 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2008

About the author

John Barth briefly studied "Elementary Theory and Advanced Orchestration" at Juilliard before attending Johns Hopkins University, received a bachelor of arts in 1951 and composed The Shirt of Nessus , a thesis for a Magister Artium in 1952.
He served as a professor at Penn State University from 1953. Barth began his career with short The Floating Opera , which deals with suicide, and The End of the Road on controversial topic of abortion. Barth later remarked that these straightforward tales "didn't know they were novels."
The life of Ebenezer Cooke, an actual poet, based a next eight-hundred-page mock epic of the colonization of Maryland of Barth. Northrop Frye called an anatomy, a large, loosely structured work with digressions, distractions, stories, and lists, such as two prostitutes, who exchange lengthy insulting terms. The disillusioned fictional Ebenezer Cooke, repeatedly described as an innocent "poet and virgin" like Candide, sets out a heroic epic and ends up a biting satire.
He moved in 1965 to State University of New York at Buffalo. He visited as professor at Boston University in 1972. He served as professor from 1973 at Johns Hopkins University. He retired in 1995.
The conceit of the university as universe based Giles Goat-Boy , a next speculative fiction of Barth comparable size. A half-goat discovers his humanity as a savior in a story, presented as a computer tape, given to Barth, who denies his work. In the course, Giles carries out all the tasks that Joseph Campbell prescribed in The Hero with a Thousand Faces . Barth meanwhile in the book kept a list of the tasks, taped to his wall.
The even more metafictional Lost in the Funhouse , the short story collection, and Chimera , the novella collection, than their two predecessors foreground the process and present achievements, such as seven nested quotations. In Letters , Barth and the characters of his first six books interact.
Barth meanwhile also pondered and discussed the theoretical problems of fiction, most notably in an essay, "The Literature of Exhaustion," first printed in the Atlantic in 1967, widely considered a statement of "the death of the novel" (compare with Roland Barthes's "The Death of the Author"). Barth has since insisted that he was merely making clear that a particular stage in history was passing, and pointing to possible directions from there. He later (1979) a follow-up essay, "The Literature of Replenishment," to clarify the point.
Barth's fiction continues to maintain a precarious balance between postmodern self-consciousness and wordplay on the one hand, and the sympathetic characterisation and "page-turning" plotting commonly associated with more traditional genres and subgenres of classic and contemporary storytelling.

Reviews

[Nathan "N.R." Gaddis]

What does an Old-Fart-Emeritus Postmodernist write? Old-Fart-Stories. Fiction. Still. “John Barth” has certainly softened up in his (currently) penultimate work of fiction, The Development, a collection of nine shorts about geezers. Boring people, sure. Cardboard? Objection noted. There’s “Barth” (still) in here {story: “The Bard” shall not be bypassed; you Writing Workshop nerds, esp., need this one as do you perhaps who’ve read that thing I’ve heard about? “Westward the SomethingSomething”?} But if you want to go with those words “boring” and “cardboard” (which you may; please do) we still have that “John Barth” the happy nihilist (did you catch that suicide-echo from The Floating Opera?), shrugged-shouldered perhaps, but here there be people too. Not to worry; they are fully fictional.

You would want to know if this is his Best Work, his really-knock-’em-flat metaphictional pyrotechnic leave ‘em no breath kind of collection. Of course it’s not. We know and I’ve no doubt that “John Barth” knows that postmodernism is dead. Long live postmodernism! Or rather that sentiment preceding the “!” is perhaps the best hope we have.

I’ll sell you on other “Barth” Books first and leave this slim volume for you few “Barth Completionista” or for you folks who take an interest in fictional geezers. Meanwhile, allow me to point you to an exchange of views between
Christopher Sorrentino, whose review appears on Bookforum, and Dan Green of The Reading Experience. The comments section of Green’s review should also be viewed, but the comments by that guy who thinks that “hipster” is a critical category ought to be ignored. Thanks to Friend Rob for the two links linked in this paragraph

[Suzanne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Disclaimer: John Barth has been my very favorite writer in the whole entire world for the past 30 years. It is doubtful that I could write a really objective review. However, that being said:

I liked “The Development” much better than recent efforts like “Coming Soon” and “Where Three Roads Meet,” but it is clearly not in the same league with Barth’s great mid-career masterpieces like “The SotWeed Factor,” “Chimera,” or even the similarly linked- story-formatted “On With the Story.”

In “The Development,” various aging couples in a large Maryland tidewater retirement community recount stories about their lives at this point, enjoyable, upper-middle class lives, but they are full of contemplation about what it means to get old, disabled, widowed and ultimately done with it all. OK, so it’s not a laugh-fest, but handled in Barth’s trademark light entertaining style, it is thought-provoking without being depressing for anyone of an age to be aware of their mortality in a realistic way. In fact, the only problem I really had with the book was that several of the narrators seemed to be saying they had had such good lives, that that was the reason they really hated to see it end. We should all be as fortunate after 70 years to be so financially comfortable and to have had so few misfortunes as this lot. Yes, life ends, whether it has been good or bad, but shouldn’t the end of a good life be less depressing (not more) than that of a crummy, disappointing life? (But perhaps, in a narrative, it is hard to portray a sense of satisfaction that would give the same dramatic tension to the action. But it did seem kind of whiny.)

There is the usual Chinese box sort of playing with who-is-narrating-this- story- within-a story that keeps you guessing and thinking about the nature of storytelling and its relationship to “life.” And the language! The language! There is no prose in the world that fills me with such delight. Even if it is largely about aging and death, how can you not have fun reading someone who describes loophole-free legal documents as “unfiddlewithable.”

[Ana · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm more than surprised at how much I enjoyed this collection of stories. I've rarely found my taste for disparate tellings, but these in here have a continuity to them and an undeniable logic. Honestly, Barth is a really good writer and I'm so happy to have discovered him! I'm more than sure I'll pick up some of his other works. He has a very distinct, sarcastic voice for an American writer, and an authentic one to say the least. While other authors tend to resemble each other, he is very specific about his structure. Of course, I can't compare him to the massive American classics, but he is surely one of the better exponents of postmodernist creation. Definitely, a work I enjoyed!

[Aiden Heavilin · Rating 4 out of 5]

I live in the suburbs, not a gated-community or anything, but a pleasant little development next to a railroad (the train whirs by twice a day). I must say I get a tad annoyed with writers always trying to demonstrate the "dark side" of Suburbia, about all the "monsters and secrets" lying hidden behind picket fences. It's like writers can't conceive that a suburb might possibly me normal, it has to be crawling with secrets and murders and conspiracies.

Barth gently plays up the absurdities of the suburbs, but he does so in a highly nuanced way, and ultimately creates an accurate albeit critical view of upper class America. I live nearby a retirement community, and I must say he captures the atmosphere there perfectly. Barth hits the nail on the head.

This is about as strong as a four-star review can get without crossing the line into five stars; I thought "The Development" was terrific, massively entertaining, one of the funniest books I've read for a long time. It has the seasoned, measured confidence of an old master; Barth doesn't overdo the absurd elements or the metafictional elements (I couldn't finish Chimera; my patience for metafictional games runs short rather quickly), and he creates some well-rounded, compelling characters. Also it's short; I could finish it in two sittings and it didn't get old.

The tour-de-force story here is the spectacular "Toga Party", a terrific tale that reminded me of Thomas Pynchon's early story, "Entropy"; both stories deal with a party coming to a strange end. However whereas Pynchon by his own admission was still finding his voice while writing "Entropy", "Toga Party" is the work of a genius with absolute control over every element of his writing, leading you through hilarity to heart-rending tragedy, a bravura performance.

Barth has one of the most genuinely enjoyable narrative voices; it's carried over all the way from his first novel "The Floating Opera". I'm looking forwards to his other books, and this one comes highly recommended.

[Lisa Hope · Rating 5 out of 5]

Oof! John Barth, master of the narrative - straight, jumbled, oblique, name it. Here are stories that are as tight as any Chekov gem. Others as helter-skelter as any nugget from Giles Goat Boy or Lost in the Funhouse, the first work in which I met this post-modern magician. What we have here are intertwined stories of middle to upper middle class folk on the dark side of 50 who have tossed in their lot with others at a community, Heron Bay Estates, on the Delmarva peninsula. It’s at turn funny, ironic, and heartbreaking. There is a peeping Tom, rivalries, progressive dinner, affairs, deaths. I began reading this two years ago, marked it as read, but still owed three stories, but after one heart-rending story that reminded me far too much of my own parents’ closely and deeply knit marriage, perhaps the most married couple I have ever known, I cried for a day. I had to set it aside. My parents had recently moved to a retirement community; in less than a year, my father was gone. Neither my mother nor I is over it. For those who believe Barth deals in an obscene pastiche fantasy land that never was, this book might convince you this is not true, nor has ever been true.

My fandom in Barthlandia has been shameful. It started with Funhouse. Then Giles. I was an acolyte. I even considered going to Johns Hopkins. I tried to get others to join the cult. I failed. I went to a southern liberal arts college. I literally sat cross legged on the floor outside my freshman advisor’s Jack Pressau, door entranced by The Floating Opera, the first book I checked out from my college library. He noted my reading. Frowned. Deduced my path, or at least my first of three paths, why have one major when for my parents’ hard earned money I could have three.

Four years later I had all but denounced Barth as an onanistic charlatan. My eternal shame. Long live the saint of postmodern in your many guises. I check the web ever day to see that you are still with us.

[Matthew Allard · Rating 2 out of 5]

Oh, I just didn't "get" this. Maybe because I'm not nearly as far-flung along in life as all of the stories' inhabitants? I didn't like its randomness, the chaos of each of the voices telling various accounts of things. I didn't like how the "fourth wall" or whatever was repeatedly broken as the writers referred both to themselves and then also to me, the reader. There were also too many couples to keep track of and stories that unspooled to the point where the narrator then says either a) I'm not who you think I am or, b) more outrageously, I'm bored of telling this story and I've decided not to even finish it.

Had the book been longer than 150 or so pages, I wouldn't have made it.

[Larry Carr · Rating 4 out of 5]

Having, the beginning of April, learned of John Barth’s recent passing at age 93, and having never read him…I thought I should. My good friend Dennis sent me an obit piece, see quote below on Barth’s writing orientation, as well as a a link to the ebook, The Development, at BezosVille bargain price - I clicked. Doing the math, written 2008, Barth would have been approximately 77 at the time of this book’s writing. Having turned 75 in March, it seemed his perspective might be perhaps timely. Oh yes, Barth’s quote: “What I hoped to be eventually was an orchestrator — what in those days was called an arranger,” he said in a Paris Review interview, published in 1985, of his beginnings as a drummer. “An arranger is a chap who takes someone else’s melody and turns it to his purpose. For better or worse, my career as a novelist has been that of an arranger.”

Barth’s The Development proved to be an arrangement of upper, above middle class lives- mostly lived, and now playing out (or played out) in a new and upscale Chesapeake Bay community development, primarily in the first decade of the new millennium. End of century to the George Bush Iraq years, mostly post 9/11, historically and politically. Climate wise, hurricanes a local concern (then Katrina, Louisiana-see Bush joke below) and an environmentally emerging awakening to the concerns and realities of global warning.

First Development- Peeping Tom. “I find myself inclined to set down for whomever, before my memory goes kaput altogether, some account of our little community, in particular of what Margie and I consider to have been it’s most interesting hour: the summer of the Peeping Tom.” … “before “Iraq”; more specifically, after desktop and even laptop computers had become commonplace, but before handheld ones came on line; after cordless phones, but before everybody had cellulars; after VCRs, but before DVDs. -late one mid-May evening in 19-whatever: Margie and I had enjoyed a postprandial stroll around Oyster Cove Court, as was and remains our habit, followed by an hour’s reading in 1010’s livingroom; then we’d changed into nightclothes and settled down in the villa’s family room as usual to spend our waking day’s last hour with the telly before our half-past-ten bedtime. Margie went into the adjacent lavatory to pee—and a few moments later I heard her shriek my name. “Somebody’s out there!” In all our years of marriage I’d seldom seen my self-possessed helpmeet so alarmed. “Looking at me!”… “bit surprised myself, not unpleasantly, at my impulsive readiness to go unarmed out into the night for a possible-though-unlikely confrontation with a prowler. I shrugged a “Who knows?” or “Nobody in sight” sign to Margie, standing inside there with cordless phone in hand. “A white guy,” she affirmed, her pulse and respiration returning to normal as we brushed our teeth and made ready for bed. -decided not to notify the sheriff’s office, much less call the 911 emergency number, until or unless something further turned up.” Next day updated the neighbors, then nothing…until 2 weeks later. “Becky Gibson glimpsed a pale face pressed to the glass of their back-porch door as she passed by it en route through their darkened house to turn of a kitchen light” this time a call to 911 ensued. …2 days later, “Reba Smyth thought she might have glimpsed a furtive figure in the Baileys’ front yard” … Resulting… “As we most certainly were: unpleasantly on edge, but reassuringly drawn together by a common nuisance that, while not yet quite an overt threat, was definitely scary.” - “just a sort of petering out, like most folks’ lives. No further Oyster Cove P.T. sightings reported after July”

Second Development. Toga Party. Precedent Foreshadowing. “the Common Disaster provision had been amended in both wills to read that “each will be presumed to have survived the other.” It would save their heirs a bundle, they’d been assured” … Hosted by the new neighbors and house - “ great rambling beige stucco affair—terra-cotta-tiled roof, great arched windows flanked by spiraled pilasters—resplendent” - “it’s palazzo design more suited in the Feltons’ opinion to Venice or booming south Florida than to Maryland’s Eastern Shore.” - “ She too thought the thing conspicuously out of place in Rockfish Reach, but “You know what they say,” she declared: “De gustibus non est disputandum”—her pleased to have remembered from prep school days. [Toga Party stipulates Latin passwords] Dick followed with “Ad infinitum!”—adding, in a lower voice to Sam, who waved them in, “or ad nauseam, whatever. Cool outfit there, Sam.” “The Decline and Fall of the You Know What,” their friend explained” - Cool Party Bush Katrina Joke. “the one about Bush’s reply when a reporter asked his opinion of Roe versus Wade? ‘I don’t care how they get out of New Orleans,’ says W, ‘as long as it doesn’t cost the government money.’” -
Followed later by drunken, grieving Sam attempting to permanently leave the party via self stabbing. And then returning home Dîck & Sue’s exit.

Third Development. Teardown. “new owners of their twenty-year-old “colonial” mini-mansions commence their tenure with radical renovation: new kitchen and baths, a swimming pool and larger patio/deck area, faux-cobblestone driveway and complete relandscaping—all subject, of course, to approval by the HBE Design Review Board” … Or in the case of Mark Matthews, investment firm mogul, and new trophy wife (his former administrative assistant) a full teardown and to preach the gospel of Mark: “to spread the Good Word about asset management?” Which the fellow did in sooth, churning their portfolios to the firm’s benefit as well as theirs and coaching his protégé to do likewise” And personal advice to his underling -“Don’t hump the help,” he then enjoyed advising their dinner guests, Joe and Judy included, in his new bride’s presence. “You should see my alimony bills!” “Plus he had to find himself a new secretary,” trim young Mrs. Matthews liked to add.”

Fourth Development. The Bard Award. “the jackpot that Stratford’s apprentice writing community regards, only half humorously, as jinxed: Shakespeare’s Revenge, they call it, the nearly two-score winners over the decades since the award’s establishment, nearly none so far has managed to become “a writer”—i.e., a more or less established and regularly publishing poet, fictionist, essayist, screenwriter, journalist, or scholar—even to the limited extent that their coaches did.” … “no more surprising than that a number of the world’s finest writers—Joyce, Proust, Nabokov, Borges, Calvino—never won the Nobel Prize, while not a few of it’s winners remain scarcely known even to us lovers of literature. C’est la vie, n’est-ce pas?” New Student. “signing her term papers and exam bluebooks (always in quotes) “Sassy Cassie,” “Sandy Claws,” or “[in]Subordinate Klause,” and contrived on her driver’s license and other official documents to have her true name set between quotes? -She would then edit, revise, and/or rewrite them as much or as little as she chose and submit them to Professor Lee’s workshop as her own, perhaps over such Klausean pen names as “John Uptight,” “(Over A-)Cheever,” “Scareless O’Hara” — Even tackling her teacher/advisor’s unpublished, previously rejected works: “Yes, well, reader of these strung-out pages: We did that, my star ex-coachee and I—unbeknownst to my wife, to Franklin Lee, and to my other Stratford ex-colleagues—and all parties were impressed. -she showed herself to be by far the best editor/rewriter as well. Those ho-hum scribblings of mine took on a resonance, texture, and sparkle.” … “this whole she-bang is a made-up story? There is no ‘Cassie-Ass Klause’ or Georgie-Boy Newett! No you, no me, no Frankie-Pank Lee! No StratColl dot e-d-u, nor any Bard Award! All just freaking fictions! So sock it to me, Coach! Unh! Unh!” - “How to wrap up a longish story that has no proper plot development anyhow? No problem, mate (ha-ha-ha-ha-ha & UNH!) . . .: THE END Respectfully submitted to the Shakespeare Prize Committee [by] “Hook R. Crook” (Copywrong ☺ Twenty-Something [G. I. Newett])”

Fifth Development. Progressive Dinner. Participants/Contestants. “A man after my own heart.” “Mine too, Tom. Decide what you want, go for it, and let the chips fall where they may.” … “politically conservative septuagenarian with the self-assured forcefulness of the CEO” Taking Sides. “when the most ubiquitous Us/Them had been Us White Folks as distinct from Them Coloreds, until supplanted after Pearl Harbor by Us Allies versus Them Japs and Nazis.” Poetic Summary. “ as Robert Frost puts it in one of his poems?—is, quote, ‘Before I built a wall, I’d ask to know what I was walling in and walling out, and to whom I’m likely to give offense,’ end of quote. Somebody just mentioned us and them: Who exactly is the Them that all these walls and gates are keeping out?” Bold Repost. “ Irish-American songwriter George M. Cohan’s reply to a resort-hotel desk clerk in the 1920s who refused him a room, citing the establishment’s ban on Jewish guests: “You thought I was a Jew,” said the composer of “The Yankee Doodle Boy,” “and I thought you were a gentleman. We were both mistaken.”

Sixth Development. Assisted Living. [Conversations to be had with oneself] “he has found himself standing ever more outside himself: prodding, directing, assisting Tim Manning through the increasingly mechanical routines of his daily existence. Talk about Assisted “Living” “T.M.” is replacing (as best he can’t) irreplaceable Margie as Tim Manning’s living-assistant.” Previously.
“ever more depended on her assistance in the memory and attention departments as his Senior Moments increased in frequency and duration” - “ after some years of due denial, so unappealing were the alternatives—that what with Margie now all but wheelchaired and her husband sometimes unable to locate the various lists that he’d come to depend on to remember practically everything, even the housekeeping of their Oyster Cove duplex was becoming more than they could manage. Time to check out Assisted (ugh!) Living.” “(“Quality retirement lifestyles! Gourmet dining! On-site medical center! A strong sense of caring and community!”)” - “they would miss gardening, outdoor barbecuing, and the relative privacy of a house. But what the hell, they had adjusted readily enough back in the ’80s from detached house to duplex living; they could hack it in a comfortable apartment.”
“ Don’t ask T.M. how things went from there. Death is, after all, a not-unusual event in elder-care establishments, whose staff will likely be more familiar with His visitations than will the visited.”
-“able at least to reply to questions. To be notified? Son in St. Louis, Daughter in Detroit. Funeral arrangements? None, thankee. None? None: Both Mannings preferred surcease sans fuss: no funeral, no grave or other marker, no memorial service.” “Organs to be harvested for recycling if usable and convenient; otherwise forget it. Remaining remains to be cremated—and no urn of ashes or ritual scattering, s.v.p.; just ditch the stuff.” “(as he explained to S-in-S and D-in-D when both were “B-in-B”: Billeted, for the nonce, in Bayview): He and Margie had been fortunate in their connection and had relished their decades together. Tim Manning is . . . well . . . left to himself, making this minimal most of his hapless self-helplessness by chewing on language like a cow it’s cud. Assisted Living? Been there, done that.”

Seventh Development. The End. “tropical depression near the Cape Verde Islands off West Africa, which he’s been monitoring for the past several days, has organized and strengthened into the seventh named storm of the season as it crossed toward the Antilles, and is currently forecast to escalate in the Caribbean from Tropical Storm Giorgio to a Category 1 hurricane.” “So meet the Walshes, Reader, as I reconstruct them—who, despite prevailingly robust health in their seventh decade of a successful life and fourth of a good marriage, have only eight remaining days of both until The End.” “In a proper Story, one would by now have some sense of a Situation: some latent or overt conflict, or at least some tension, whether between the Walshes themselves or between them on the one hand and something exterior to them on the other it’s teller readily acknowledges to be no proper Story, only a chronicle: It’s Beginning now ended, it’s Middle has begun, and it’s End draws nearer”
Giorgio. “weakens yet again from Cat. 1 to Borderline T.S. as he makes his way toward Norfolk and the mouth of the Chesapeake, leaving the usual trail of flash floods and power outages. -Except that, as happens on rare occasions, the system spun of a single, short-lived but very strong tornado. Subsequently rated a high-end F3 on the Fujita scale (winds just above 200 mph), the thing touched down here in Avon County a few miles south of Stratford, fortunately sparing that colonial-era college town but bull’s-eyeing instead handsome Heron Bay Estates. -a well-conceived and admirably executed project—nay, community—developed to completion over two dozen years and then, in half that many minutes, all but obliterated. -although Heron Bay Estates was effectively wrecked, the human casualties of that spinoff tornado were remarkably low: only two deaths. -so many survived such devastation so little scathed—collapsed buildings ablaze from leaking propane lines. “A couple” in both senses: M/M George and Carol Walsh, Crushed and buried, they were, in the rubble of that not-unhandsome residence: two red-brick-sided, white-trimmed, black-shuttered-and-doored, slate-roofed stories, of which only the far end of one chimneyed exterior wall remained standing after the tornado.” … “ “I” invent a pleasant, “eco-sensitive” gated community called Heron Bay Estates, replete with a natural preserve, recreational facilities, good neighbors and Peeping Toms, toga parties and progressive dinners, neighborhood- and community-association meetings, house renovations and teardowns, adulteries and suicides—the works. Sometimes I almost get to thinking that the place is real.”

Eighth Development. Rebeginning. “to address the first postapocalyptic meeting of the Heron Bay Estates Community Association” - “Yes, well,” Dean Simpson said “Here we-all are” “indeed—or almost all of us, anyhow, and thanks be for that!” -“the question before us, obviously, is Do we start over? And if so, how?” “Motion carried: Half a minute’s silence here declared, in memory of our late good neighbors the Walshes and our much-missed Heron Bay Estates.” “Let’s start again—which of course is this meeting’s agenda exactly.” “But just as, now and then, one such leaf may happen against all odds to be noticed, picked up, and at least for some while preserved—between the leaves of a book, say—and may with luck outlast it’s picker-upper as the book may outlast it’s author and even it’s serial possessors even if this feeble re-imagining them of, like the afore-invoked leaf-pressed leaf, itself sits pressed and scarcely noted in Papa T’s endless, ever-growing library— Or, more likely, his recycling bin. —[Good]By[e] George I. Newett

I vote no on redevelopment, but yes on The Development. And goodbye John Barth.

[Haven Fairfield · Rating 2 out of 5]

I almost forgot that I had read this book earlier this year and that just kills me. I have this 'thing' for John Barth- I'm convinced he's brilliant and one of America's most important authors, living or dead. Giles Goat Boy, The End of the Road and The Floating Opera are very important books to me. I read them in college. Someone must have told me that Mr. Barth is a genius and it stuck. Having said all of that, let me tell you that I was thoroughly disappointed by The Development. Barth's narratives (this is a collection of connected stories) are written in a brand of colloquial that is somewhere between conversational and stream of consciousness. The voice he arrives at is seldom convincing. I found it to be contrived. Put simply, I found the voices of this tome (to Barth's credit he is capable of adopting several voices) to be unfamiliar and ill-applied. Though the characters are original and he keeps far afield of cliche, he ends up telegraphing his intentions while patronizing his readers through the display of his own virtuosity. He's like a world class ball room dancer that takes over the floor at your cousin's wedding. Ostensibly, Barth is painting portraits of baby boomers coming to grip with mortality but I think he is really just going through some literary calisthenics and the reader is supposed to be happy to watch.

[luii · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cu siguranță această carte este subestimată și felicit pe această cale editura Nemira, pentru publicare ei în cadrul colecției Babel.

Recunosc că nu am auzit niciodată în viața mea de John Barth, dar după ce am citit Toga Party, pot spune doar un lucru: acest om s-a născut să fie povestitor. Ceva din stilul său te prinde, narațiunea curge frumos și nu poți să nu te lași prins în cuvintele lui.

Referitor la povești, ele sunt concentrate asupra unei comunități fictive, populate de cupluri trecute de primele tinereți.

Ce mi-a plăcut cel mai mult e că personajele, în cam 90% din povești sunt persoane bătrâne, cu realizări în viață, copii și nepoți. Cu toate că sună cam dur, aceste personaje nu mai au ce să facă în viață. Această situație este ceva ce apare în ultimii ani de viață, când nu se face altceva decât să se aștepte. Cartea e imprevizibilă, asta pot să zic clar și în ciudat faptului că este o colecție de povestiri, există o legătură între ele și dacă citiți toată cartea deodată va părea un roman.

4 stele pentru că au fost vreo două povești care nu mi-au plăcut atât de mult și pentru că finalul nu a fost cel la care mă așteptasem. Nu vreau să dau spoilere, dar spre final totul a fost random și bag in your face și încă nu m-am decis dacă mi-a plăcut sau nu acest aspect.

[Elizabeth · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read one of the stories ('Toga Party') in this book in a collection edited by Stephen King; that shoulda told me something. Mr. Barth has been my favorite author for some decades now. I was able to hear, see, and speak with him briefly when he came to NCSU maybe 5 years ago. I wanted to tell him that I was influenced by his writing, to learn French and to sail. This work will mean little to most but I am struck by the echo of my places and my times, right there in the stories making up "The Development." Yeah, it's depressing, but, hey, that's life.

[Deloris · Rating 2 out of 5]

Retirement age townhouse living

[Kat · Rating 2 out of 5]

Set in a retirement community. Supposed to be funny. Is kind of funny, but also kind of depressing. I only read the first story.

[Trinity · Rating 1 out of 5]

Ugh. Couldn't get into the stories. Stopped at page 70.

[TheAccidental Reader · Rating 4 out of 5]

Loved it, mostly because I lived on Maryland's Eastern Shore for a few years. Barth has the place pegged and it was fun trying to figure out what he was really referring to, when he mentioned a county, or a river or a college. This is my first reading of Barth and I thoroughly enjoyed the style.
I don't recommend this book for people who are younger than I am. They probably will find depressing, some of what I am now always thinking about, and much of which Barth addresses. But it's life, and those my age will probably appreciate the explication in the same way I did. In theatre the conventions (or not-conventions) used here would be called "breaking the proscenium" and that made it all kinds of fun for me.
Houghton Mifflin needs to fix the problem in the book with ITS and OFF, the former always being spelled with an apostrophe and the latter always being spelled with one F only. I am going to speak to an editor friend of mine about how this kind of systematic copyediting error can occur. Maybe it's not like that in the printed books, but the Kindle edition was extremely disconcerting because every time you see these two errors, you just want to scream. Also, Hurricane Georgio? No. Atlantic hurricanes, traditionally have had names originating from the French, English, or Spanish origin, (although maybe lately we've dug into the German and the Ukrainian for the O hurricanes) Not Italian, so that was a research miss on the part of Barth.

[Mike · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm really enjoying reading Barth's late works, and this slim collection of linked stories is just great. Barth tamps down on his metafictional bag of tricks to tell the stories of the aging, endearing residents of a housing development, which ostensibly gives the book its title. But he's really talking about old age, loss, and grief - the only plot developments for these characters are going to be sad ones (frequently, the narrator refuses to end the story at all, knowing full well what's coming). Barth's trademark wit and gusto, still present, are tempered with a tinge of melancholy and empathy.

[David]

Like so many other books, a different read for me in my 60s than it was even in my 50s. Many of Barth’s habitual obsessions are still in the foreground but there seems to be just a little less recycling going on than in some of his earlier books. But bleak! Decline, Decay, and Death hold sway over all. Few books have been more about “The End.”

[Richard · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was a rollercoaster ride for me, and I don't necessarily mean that as a compliment. Of late, under circumstances that he may or may not have explained, Lord Barth has undertaken the effort of self-fulfilling prophecy. Like the protagonist of his own The Tidewater Tales, Barth has developed from the tome-novelist to the producer of short work. While his productions of late (at least in book form) have not been anything like "The Olive" from his ficitonal counterpart, the latest offerings have been quite slim. This one is 9 interlinked stories all from a housing development in his dear Tidewater area. All the stuff of Barth is here - the musings upon the nature of fiction, the failure of fiction in the face of actuality, the wordplay and punnistry that makes Barth our Gravedigger who outwits even the undefeatable (or undefatigable) Hamlet.

But several of these stories just didn't thrill me. Barth is a fine, fine writer, but he seems to waver between the curious and the intellectual, and the curious and intellectual with deep-seeded emotion. The latter seems to take him a few books to build to, bless his heart, for a wondrouns book like Chimera or The Tidewater Tales seems to take something like Letters to sit between them to show how Barth's work can falter. Unfortunately, Barth does this wavering within this very collection. Had the last story here been "Assisted Living," I might have come out of this with a more grand opinion, but instead Barth had to force his hand and fizzle this book out--obviously for obvious reasons, but Barth seems to get caught up sometimes in his own Barthiness, and so this collection ends with a whimper for good reason, but not reason that spurs on my irrational love of reading.

Thanks for keeping on, John. I can only hope to aspire to his level, but this time I wish I had come out of it all a little more excited.

[Kristin · Rating 4 out of 5]

I give this book 3 stars based on how much it interested and delighted me. It's hard to give this book so few stars, because it's a great book, so I gave it four. It made me think, it resonated with me when I think about the peer group of my parents, and also myself as I age and talk more and more about property values with my ever less intimate friends.

The development is a place like many in the states, a restricted access suburbs where people who have made it who are 40+, but generally 60+, go to retire. Nice houses, no crime, a pool, 2.5 bathrooms for the 2 empty-nesters who live there. And, while politics is a big topic of conversation, the development's government is really self-governed by a homeowner's association.

The people who live there are moderately successful, smart and loving. No one abuses their spouse or steals from their neighbors. Their children are loved, they keep themselves fit and in good health, they read, teach and write. But, the book portrays a life that seems empty. They no longer have close relationships outside their spouses. The relationships with the children are distant but friendly. Their activities seem meaningless - they play tennis, host progressive dinner parties, barbecue. The neighbors are briefly united by a suspected peeping tom incident, but other than that, they seem like capable people whose talents are wasted as life passes them by too quickly. A lot of time is spent planning their death - where will they move, how can they make it easy on their kids, how will they survive without each other, why is this last chapter so much less than the others.

[Anthony R. Vecchiarelli · Rating 1 out of 5]

Crap. Really, Crap. What is the purpose or value of Barth's asinine self consciousness? In one story he approaches the end and, instead of ending it, he offers three possible endings. In another he ends by telling readers that it's just a story they have read, it is not real, there are no characters, or a setting. These stories are like stuffed toys that have been cut open so the stuffing falls out. This writer is not doing his job. Readers know they are reading works of fiction. Readers know a writer wrote the story they have read. It is no great revelation to be told this. Why is he wasting ink and paper and everybody's time to tell us this? The characters are not characters at all. They are clones of each other. They are hardly distinct one from another and they all sound and talk alike. They are a group of smug, self satisfied, wealthy white people very afraid of sickness and old age and inevitable death. In the last story the narrator wishes none of the preceding events had ever happened. I wish the book had never been written or published. Also, not once in the book was the word 'off' spelled out. In every instance 'of' appears instead. No editors? No proofreaders?
I bought the book because it was cheap and I have enjoyed other works by Barth. I did not enjoy this book and I feel ripped off. DON'T WASTE YOUR MONEY.

[Kathryn Bashaar · Rating 4 out of 5]

Most of these stories had strong metafiction elements, which didn't really work for me. But, there is one story in this collection that just blew me away: Toga Party. The ending is shocking at first, and then it hits you: the whole story was marching relentlessly towards this EXACT ending. All of the stories have to do with retired or near-retired older people living in a gated community in Maryland. SOMEBODY PLEASE JUST STAB ME and put me out of my misery if my life is as empty as theirs when I get old. None of them has any religious faith or spiritual life. They never come into contact with anyone very different from them, unless that person is serving them in some way. They're all either retired or so sick of their work that they're basically phoning it in. Most of them neither have close friends nor have close relationships with their adult children. The one touching element of many of the stories is the closeness between spouses and the dread that they feel at the prospect of one dying before the other. That is a strong theme in Toga Party especially. A depressing book, but worth reading just for that one story.

[Sterlingcindysu · Rating 2 out of 5]

The townhouses of Heron Bay Estates, on Maryland's Eastern Shore, mostly cater to older folks who want something smaller than a freestanding house but who aren't quite ready for the retirement home. But through small events like a toga party or sightings of a local Peeping Tom, the residents experience both the pleasures and the indignities of old age. The loosely linked stories that form The Development play with not only the format but with readers' expectations; both long-time fans of author John Barth's work and readers new to him will enjoy the tales, which are "urbane, discursive and humorous, often bawdy and never sentimental" (Publishers Weekly).

[Adrianna · Rating 1 out of 5]

So this is actually a couple of short stories about life in this housing development.

Some people may like John Barth's style, but this is the second of his book I have tried to read and couldn't.

In this book, I had trouble getting into any of the stories and his descriptions are just too long and boring for me.

[Julie Barrett · Rating 4 out of 5]

g read

[GeeketteKathy · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a delightful romp through this gated community of late-middle-agers! The stories are so much fun to read (both baudy and witty), all while poking fun at suburbia. All of the elements of suburban neighborhoods are present: the annoying barking dog, faulty electric entrance gates, the nonconforming McMansion, homeowners associations, friction over Christmas trees and decorations, progressive dinners, automobiles as status symbols, etc.

While all of these things brought me much amusement, it is Barth’s writing style that has made me want to read more of his stories. Each of the stories is “told” by a different character (whose name is not always immediately obvious to the reader) – a good analogy for a neighborhood: while all trying to live together as a community, each person wants to be sure that they have their say and are heard.

Barth steps out of the storytelling frequently to have a chat with the Reader, providing commentary and asking “So … ?” as if asking the reader to make a decision about why this story might be relevant. Add to this some sprinkled references to being beyond middle age and this book becomes one of my favorites in recent years.

If you like books that make you think because the wordplay goes beyond the telling of the story, this one belongs on your to-be-read pile.

[Cathryn Conroy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Oh, what a fun (and funny!) exposé of life in an affluent gated community among those who are retired or almost-retired. From peeping toms to progressive dinners, John Barth's pointed and highly-creative satire told in nine interrelated short stories is a joy to read.

Each story is told by (or focuses on) a different resident in Heron Bay Estates, located in the fictional town of Stratford in the fictional county of Avon on the very real Eastern Shore of Maryland near the Chesapeake Bay. It's a little like Seinfeld in that it is a lot of "nothing," but that nothing adds up to a lot. The stories are sexy and surreal, humorous and heartbreaking—all at the same time.

I highly recommend this for those of a certain age!

Note for Kindle Readers: There are a LOT of typos in the book. I reported around 100—yes, that many! The typos are consistently of just three types, which is really odd. Virtually every instance of "its" is spelled "it's"; every instance of "off" is spelled "of"; and many words have mysterious spaces in the middle, such as "be fore." Perhaps, the publisher will soon fix this.

[Tom Romig · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's been almost 35 years since I've read anything by John Barth. Always found his works to be thoughtful and hilarious: The Sot-Weed Factor, Lost in the Funhouse, Giles Goat-Boy, The End of the Road, and both versions of The Floating Opera (I've often used "floating opera," a wonderful metaphor for people coming into and out of your life, also termed "catch and release" by a poet I recently read, perhaps Tony Hoagland). I prefer the first version of The Floating Opera to the Revised Edition, although I believe the revision was actually the first one he wrote, if you get my drift.

Anyway, I enjoyed The Development, which is a collection of nine related short stories. Barth is great at developing very real characters who display the inevitable human foibles and pretensions, which he exploits for comedy. He knows that our existence is mostly mundane, punctured by unpredictable events both natural and human wrought. Running throughout these tales is a fear of a debilitating aging process and impending death, which Barth treats with both consolation and terror.

[Holly · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed Barth's writing even though its fast pace often had me losing track of who was speaking to whom. Living in a gated community myself, I couldn't help but see the numerous demographic and personality similarities between my neighbors (myself?) and these characters. However, Barth took it a step further, writing not just character sketches, but character sketches in a dark comedy milieu if not a downright depressing one. His characters, the majority in the sunset of their lives, each deal with a life-altering, if not life-ending event. Their handling of these situations derived from what felt like a loss of hope, that no more good would be coming into their lives, and that everything was now on a downhill slide. This made me so sad. I think I'm going to need to watch some good sitcoms to not start dwelling on my own eventual demise.

[gary a. guetzlaff · Rating 1 out of 5]

Consistently and tediously boring

Join the boring and insipid lives of a group of all-too-real obnoxious privileged people living in each others' business. Even when something tragic, happens - a suicide, a tornado, an extramarital affair, the reader has no reason to care, because the characters are so listlessly obnoxious.

I have read other works by Barth, and know he is capable of rising above this homogeneous miasma.

Note to type setter - there are more instances of "its" than "it's" in the text of this book, so if you don't know the proper usage, you have a better chance of guessing right if you leave the hyphen out.

[Erik Deckers · Rating 5 out of 5]

I didn't like this book at all, but I LOVED the language. John Barth really is a master of language and he understands the craft of writing. I didn't like the people in the stories, or some of the stories themselves. As someone who just hit his 50s, the book was depressing and made me sad.

"Is this what I have to look forward to over the next 20 years?" I wondered. It was so damn depressing. I was hoping for biting satire, and instead I got a glimpse into a sad future. I hope this is not what I have to look forward to.

[Caroline · Rating 3 out of 5]

Having read some of John Barth's knock out novels I was a tad underwhelmed with The Development. It paints a picture of a gated community of late middle-agers/retirees with typical Barthian wit and wisdom. I found some of the voices/stories more engaging than others and some cracked me up to no end. As a fan of Lost in the Funhouse and The Chimera, this one was less dense/an easy read/fun but not tough enough/sad and funny/old farts tales/JB imagining his own vanishing act. Just my take.